Just in handling and auto focus I like the Nikon’s capture of the subjects – I was able to nail the shot in one try. And it took several attempts to get the Canon to duplicate the shot made by the Nikon D90. But here you can see side by side comparisons at about 100%. These were cropped so you can see the difference.

Nikon 105mm VR vs Canon 100mm IS

Nikon 105mm VR vs Canon 100mm IS

If I was to pick a winner I would go with the Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 VR. A lot of that is just from my gut in my selection. In testing the Canon 100mm f/2.8 IS this week I have been feeling the Nikon just gives me better results. And I think that is one reason I decided to keep photographing with both camera systems. I was really close to selling my Nikon gear to replace it all with Canon. But that 105mm is hard to beat. If you don’t have one you should go out and buy one.

Or get it from amazon.com.

I can see using a really long lens for models or fashion because you can make the person look thinner with the compression available with really long lenses (one reason you don’t photograph models with a wide angle lenses). And you get the really blurry backgrounds behind the subject.

AF-S Nikkor 200–400mm f/4G ED VR II

So, yeah, the lens isn’t practical but it is really cool. It would be perfect for outdoor sporting events. All you would ever need for outdoor football would be a 70-200mm and the 200-400mm lens. And with improving ISO capabilities on these camera bodies this lens may soon work for indoor sports photography.

And this lens doesn’t have a Canon counterpart. And Nikon is the king of zoom lenses (Canon is the king of prime lenses.)

But for now this set up works pretty well. I was able to get about 150 shots with 3 lights on one battery before the battery started to show signs of weakness. That is when I came in and used just one Alien Bee on the battery and I used 2 Nikon SB-800s attached to the CyberSync receivers. And that worked pretty well for the rest of the shoot. So in about 3 hours we got about 250+ shots. Not to bad. It is expensive? Not as expensive as a ProPhoto or all Elinchrom setup. So it will work for most people who want to have some power.

Alien Bees Studio Lighting on the Utah Salt Flats

I am using a boom arm with a c-stand so I can get light in front of and above the subject without the light poll being in my way. I am also using ankle weights to weight down the light stands so they don’t fall over. I don’t want to lose a flash head to wind.

It has been raining and raining for the past 3 days. At least it isn’t snowing.

Tomorrow there is going to be the annual Walk MS in Salt Lake City, Utah and I will be going to help photograph the event. It should be fun and hopefully not wet. Last time I was caught in an all day event in the rain I was prepared enough with plastic trash bags. They kept the equipment safe in the rain but damn it was difficult to photograph.

So I have my eye on the Think Tank Photo Hydrophobia. It helps protect your camera gear in the rain while letting you access the buttons and controls and continue to photograph. This is on my Amazon.com wishlist and so hopefully I will buy it soon. And I will review it once I do.

There are versions that will even support the big lenses at 600mm! All I will need is the one for my 70-200mm.

As for that rain day last year, I was surprised to see how many photographers were not even protecting their cameras in the rain – I was passing out plastic garbage bags to them and encouraging them to keep their gear safe.

For a while I have been using Google Analytics – and I will continue to use it since it is free and it is pretty informative. Google seems to be the king of all web knowledge. However, I learned about another service called Woopra. It offers real-time statistics. I signed up for free – and depending on how much traffic you have to your website the service is free.

Here is a screen shot of the application. I could see what city people were visiting from – as it was happening.

Woopra

That is just so cool. And hopefully this will provide information on when is the best time to blog? Should I post things on Saturdays and Sundays? Or should I wait till Mondays?

And I am using the free Woopra plugin for WordPress. I did have to use some HTML code for one of my websites – for some reason the WordPress plugin didn’t work on davidphotographytips.com. But once I added the code to the footer things worked great.

Right now I can see that my daviddanielsphotography.com website has had visitors from the US, Spain, Canada and even Saudi Arabia.

And hopefully knowing this information will help encourage me to blog more and be more effective in my website strategy.

I have finally caved in and purchase a Hoodman Loupe – and like a lot of people I want to know why I waited so long to buy one. Maybe it is because what it does is so simple and the price seems pretty dang pricey. The Hoodman Loupe is placed over the LCD screen of your digital camera so you can see the screen if you are outside in bright sunlight.

It took me a while to figure out how to get the Hoodman Loupe to focus properly. You twist the eyepiece till things come into focus. At first the twisting felt like I was going to break it – it was so tight. But once I got it going focusing was easy. And I won’t have to focus again, unless my vision changes.

$79 sounds like a lot of money – but I imagine you could do this with an empty toilet paper cardboard roll. And with how often I photograph outdoors this will definitely make things easier to know when things are exposed properly and if focus is sharp.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 available on amazon.com

Typically I like to wait a few months so that the software can be broken in by the general population. Software often times is buggy right out of the box and you want to wait till they have a bug patch. However, Adobe Photoshop and the other software is pretty dang stable – rarely have I had the software crash on me – ever.

And so why do I want to buy it right away? Some features such as HDR Pro, Content Aware fill, better mask selections, and other magical features that will help me work faster and create even better images.

Here is a cool video that goes through some of the top videos.

And I will be purchasing the full Adobe CS5 Design Premium Suite. Because I do use Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator, Fireworks, Acrobat, and of course Photoshop. So I need to save about $599 – ugh. Expensive.

Meet the latest addition to my very big camera bag (ok, I have several camera bags to hold this stuff). I bought the Lensbabies Soft Focus Optic. I will be creating some photographs with this optic in the next few days to show off what it does. But if you don’t have a Lensbaby – you really should get one. It is a unique creative tool that will challenge you – because you will be photographing in manual mode and manual focus. But you will also find that you create photographs that are truly unique and creative.

Practice makes perfect.

I have the whole set of Lensbaby optics – and they are the opposite to the quality of a Canon L series lens or to a Nikon high end lens. These are full of imperfections – that is what makes them appealing. It is my way of creating vintage photographs with digital tools. And without spending hours and hours in Photoshop.

The following photograph was taken with my Canon Lensbaby and the double glass optic.

Lensbaby Soft Focus Optic

Well, amazon.com has a huge selection of Canon lens hoods.

Why would I suggest you use lens hoods? Two main reasons. First the lens hood helps cut down flare and improves contrast in a photograph. If you have bright lights shining at the lens then it does wash out an image. If you want to test this use your hand to shield light from the sun or bright lights. And you will hopefully see the contrast difference. Second, I use lens hoods as protection for my lenses. I don’t believe in using UV filters on the front of my lenses for protection. And (knock on wood) lens hoods have acted as perfect protection for the front glass element of my lenses.

Why would I spend $300-$1500 on a nice lens with excellent glass and precision optics and then place a piece of plastic or a cheap piece of glass in front of the lens?

The only filter that I would use is a circular polarizers. The circular polarizer helps make blue skies bluer and clouds more contrasty and bold. It also helps make colors more saturated. Polarizers also help reduce reflections on water, green plants and even objects. They are the one filter Photoshop can’t imitate.

So there is my mini-soap box on lens hoods and circular polarizers.